In many installations of telephone or other cables, one end of the cable is secured to a cable pulling eye which is attached to a wire rope or stranded steel cable that is drawn onto a takeup reel or capstan to advance the pulling cable and the attached telephone cable through a conduit which may be underground or within a building, such as a central office. Such pulling eye devices also find utility during the outdoor installation of cables wherein aerial cables are strung from pole to pole.
Over the years many types of pulling eyes have been developed, each of which include features for firmly securing the cable during a pulling operation without imparting undue stress concentrations that may damage the cable. Another criteria to be considered in the design of such cable pulling devices is the need to keep the outside diameter of the pulling device as near as possible to the outside diameter of the cable, thus obviating the need for conduits or ducts of excessive sizes. A further design criteria resides in the design of a cable pulling eye that may be installed on a cable with a minimum amount of labor and effort.
In the patent to H. E. Durr, U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,692 issued Jan. 15, 1980, there is shown a cable pulling eye having a wedging cone which is assembled between the cable wires and then drawn into position to force the wires against an overlaying conical ring. A thin-walled shell of stepped construction surrounds the secured wire and provides a mounting for a cable eye. The cables are further secured by swaging a stepped portion of the shell to further grip the wires.
Other types of cable pulling eyes are shown in the patents to S. M. Sutton, U.S. Pat No. 2,327,831 issued Aug. 24, 1943 and J. A. Smith, U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,400 issued Nov. 2, 1976. The Sutton patent again uses a wedging member and a concentric ring to grip the wires. The wedging member has a threaded hole therethrough to receive a threaded shank extending from an eye bolt. The wedged wires are surrounded by a shell having a beaten over end which overlies a flange extending from the threaded shank. In the Smith patent a rod with axially spaced barbs is driven into a bundle of cable wires while a shell surrounding the cable is advanced over the cable sheath. The shell is subsequently crimped between the barbs to force the wires into the spaces between the barbs.
In U.S. Pat No. 2,712,953 issued July 12, 1955, to B. S. Snow, there is disclosed a cord coupling constructed of a shell into which a cord is placed. Thereafter a rod having a threaded forward section is screwed through a threaded hole formed in the end of the sleeve so that the rod advances into the cord to displace and secure the cord in the shell. An unthreaded projecting section of the rod is in the form of an eyelet to permit the attachment of the cord coupling to a support.